You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, ut you can change yourself.
- JIM ROHN America’s foremost business philosopher
We're down to the last few hours till we start a brand new year.
How about making 2018 your best year ever? ...but how? Let Jack Canfield shows you a process to make it happen.
Well, Canfield prescribes a 5-step process which includes taking responsibility for your life, identifying your purpose, and setting a goal that will bring you closer to your vision.
Setting goals is just the beginning, you need to take actions to achieve them. Avoiding taking action or making wrong action will not help you achieve your goals. So let's go step-by-step on the goal achievement process, starting with Step #1.
STEP #1: TAKE 100% RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR LIFE
100% Responsible For Everything
Ask yourself if you have the habit of blaming others for your lack of success. If yes, it's time to do a reality check, look at the mirror if you will.
To take 100% responsibility for your life means you acknowledge that you create everything that happens to you - both your successes and failures. Give up blaming and complaining when things don't go the way you want. And start creating the life that you want, and not depending on others to build it for you.
Your successes and failures are entirely up to you, you are completely responsible for whatever happens in your life, so stop blaming other people for your misery. When you stop blaming and complaining and instead start acknowledging the fact that you are the designer and creator of your life story, you will begin to take control of your life.
In Chapter 1 of Success Principles, Canfield teaches that you, and you alone, is responsible for the quality of your life. You are responsible for all the results you produce including the level of your achievements, the quality of your relationships, and the state of your health, finances (income, debt) and even your emotions and feelings - that means everything.
It is not easy to take responsibility over our lives because we've been conditioned to blame others when our life turns out below our expectations. We don't want to look into the real source of the problem - ourselves! Remember the story of a man looking for his lost key under the street lamp? Turns out the man lost his key at home, but at that moment, it's brighter under the lamp that's why he's looking for the key there. Yeah, it's absurd, but come to think of it, we're like that man whenever we start pointing fingers to other people or situation as reason for our problems.
Give Up All Your Excuses
To take 100% responsibility over your life, you have to give up all your excuses. Stop playing the role of a victim. Stop being ignorant, fearful, and the need to be right and safe. Instead start believing that you possess the power to make a difference in your life, to make things right and to produce the desired result.
Whenever something doesn't turn out as planned, you need to ask yourself the following questions:
1. How did I create that?
2. What was I thinking?
3. What were my beliefs?
4. What did I say or not say?
5. What did I do or not do to create that result?
6. How did I get the other person to act that way?
7. What do I need to do differently to get the result I want?
Activity
Write your three excuses:
1. _____________________________
2. _____________________________
3. _____________________________
Write your action statements here:
1. _____________________________
2. _____________________________
3. _____________________________
Example:
Excuse: I didn't pay my bill on time because nobody reminded me and I didn't have enough money
Action statement: I will take charge of my finances to set aside money to pay for bills, and I will have a scheduling system such as calendar reminder in my phone app
E + R = O
(Event + Response = Outcome)
Whatever you experience in your life is just the result of how you respond to an earlier event. An outcome or result can either be success or failure, health or sickness, wealth or poverty, intimacy or estrangement, and joy or frustration. Your response will depend on following either your subconscious programming that develops into bad habit, or the conscious and intentional behavior that arises from your clear goals, core values, and life purpose.
You have two choices to make in face of an event.
1. You can respond (R) by blaming the event (E) for your lack of result (R). Bad economy, lack of money, inadequate education, low skills, racism and gender bias, the government, your parents, your boss, your co-employees, company policies, and so on. These factors all exist, but if they were the deciding factors, nobody will succeed. Think about African-Americans Jackie Robinson (baseball), Barack Obama (politics), Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington (entertainment), or women Dianne Feinstein and Hillary Clinton (politics), or college dropouts Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (tech industry). For every reason why it's not possible, there are hundreds of people who have faced the same circumstances and succeeded.
2. You can change your responses (R) to an event (E) until you get the outcome (O) you want. You can change your thinking, the image you hold about yourself and the world, the way you communicate, and your behavior. Unfortunately, we are all run by our negative and destructive habits, the old cultural programming, the negative mindset. So the best way to get out of this is to intentionally change your beliefs, mindset, behavior, thus your responses to an event.
So, either choice, you get the exact result. One leads to failure, and the other one to success.
We ourselves are our limiting factor. We often think limiting thoughts and engage in self-limiting behaviors. How is it that you continue smoking, drinking, eating junk food, spending and splurging on non-essentials that we don't afford, and not getting enough sleep? Why is it that we keep ignoring useful feedback? Why is it that we don't educate ourselves (by reading books and learning new skills) about the important things in life and instead engage in useless social media and gaming? Then wonder why our lives don't work, and then blame others when we run into financial troubles and health issues?
Whatever you think, say, and do, make sure they are intentional and aligned to your purpose, values, and goals.
If You Don't Like Your Outcomes, Change Your Responses
What's your response when the road traffic stands still for an hour?
What's your response when another driver cuts in front of you?
What's your response when the price of petrol increased?
What is happening to you again and again is just the result of habits that you think and do. You've got to think at the moment and analyze these things if you want to stop them. Stop blaming other people, stop complaining about the traffic, the weather, the culture, and the system.
Easy questions above to answer. But what would be your response when something more serious or tragic happens? Say you were passed on promotion, or lost your job, or duped by your business partner, or got a serious medical issue, or got involved in an accident? These hard questions will certainly need deeper digging for answers, but again neither complaining or blaming will fix the problem. It will be helpful to clarify your core beliefs, personal values, and life purpose to be able to respond positively.
You Experience What You've Chosen to Think and Do
In hindsight, what you are experiencing right now is just the result of the choices you've made in the past. Let's take a simple example of an event with two different outcomes:
Event: You are given a $400 bonus.
Response: You spend it on a night on the town with friends.
Outcome: You are broke.
Event: You are given a $400 bonus.
Response: You invest it in your mutual fund.
Outcome: You have an increased net worth.
In foresight, you have to harness the power of the equation E + R = O in choosing your correct response to an event or situation.
When you are conscious and intentional with your response, you are responsible. You cannot blame anyone else.
Review again the three excuses and three action statements you've written before. See and feel how you become more responsible with your actions.
This is just the first step, changing your behavior to direct your action to achieve your goal.
